


and golden time convents

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: the twelfth night au [4]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: (not by Alanna and Delia), Adopted Children, Bad Parenting, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Racism, Cultural Differences, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Griffins, Humor, Immortals War, King's Own, Male-Female Friendship, Spies & Secret Agents, Yamani Isles, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-27 00:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18293090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Stopping at Olau with Third Company, Kel meets her heroine, catches up with an old friend, and makes the acquaintance of a great mage.In the meantime, Delia takes the measure of the realm's most promising - and most potentially troublesome - squire.





	and golden time convents

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to seori for the beta, and absolutely no thanks at all to lisafer and seori for enabling me all the way into 8k of sequel fic... again...

Kel couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t known that Lady Delia of Eldorne was best avoided. It was not something the Mindelans had ever talked of openly, but overheard murmurs had made Kel aware that King Jonathan’s confidential agent had been responsible for the introduction into their household of at least one new member of staff whose duties weren’t exactly limited to caring for the Mindelans’ linen. Her parents had been both resigned and angry, and once they were in the Isles they avoided the subject of Lady Delia, even when she came up in the natural course of children’s games of the Lioness beating the Wicked Duke, or discussions of King Jonathan’s court. Scrupulously even-handed, Lady Ilane managed nonetheless to give the impression that she’d never spoken to Lady Delia, and only knew of her a little through friends. Sir Piers professed almost total ignorance of her, except that she played a good game of chess.

 

But that wasn’t the limits of their knowledge, or Kel’s responsibility to keep clear of her, and that was brought home to Kel during a quiet discussion that last summer at Mindelan, before they took the road south to Corus.

 

“Listen to me,” Lady Ilane said, picking over Kel’s old clothes and deciding which ones were still fit for Corus, and which needed to be remade or replaced. “There is something you should know before you go south – something regarding Sir Alanna that nobody will tell you of openly, because nobles are idiots, especially the men.”

 

“Mama, we’re nobles.”

 

“And you picked a fight with a spidren, and I left my oldest daughter in the Yamani Isles.” Lady Ilane paused. “Not that Patricine can’t handle herself, but I do wish I could have stayed another year, to be sure – Well.”

 

Kel prodded the tender flesh around her fading black eye, and listened.

 

“Sir Alanna has… a close companion,” Lady Ilane said, and clarified this by adding a Yamani word for which Kel knew no Common equivalent. “They pretended to be betrothed while Sir Alanna was a squire, and her identity was a secret. And afterwards… everyone expected Lady Delia to marry, or to run home to Eldorne, or to do anything other than what she actually _did_.” Lady Ilane tossed an elderly dress that had once belonged to both Adalie and Oranie - and now hovered somewhere around the middle of Kel’s calves - into the pile for scraps.

 

Kel waited.

 

“She did not marry,” Lady Ilane said, “she did not run away, she did not forswear Sir Alanna, and she became a… well, a confidential agent for the King. A spy.”

 

“How does a noblewoman become a spy?”

 

“I have no idea,” Lady Ilane said briskly, “though it probably has something to do with Duke Roger’s temporary resurrection – I think she had a hand in making it more temporary than it might have been. I beg you won’t ask Lady Delia. In fact, it would be best if you avoided speaking to her at all.”

 

Kel stared. “Why?”

 

“Because Lady Delia did not forswear Sir Alanna,” Lady Ilane said, with grim amusement, “and they now live largely at Olau when they are not in Corus, with three war orphans and the Tasride heir, whose mother didn’t know what to do with him after Sir Benwick died.”  

 

Kel thought about this for a few moments, and then said in Yamani that she thought it sounded very romantic.

 

Lady Ilane replied in the same language that it was indeed very romantic, and if Lady Delia didn’t have such interfering ways then she (Lady Ilane) would like her very much, but they were now in Tortall and social proprieties were different.

 

Kel digested this.

 

“People are kinder than they once were,” Lady Ilane said. “Even before King Jonathan’s accession, Queen Lianne received Lady Delia at court. These days, Queen Cerenne is quite good friends with Sir Alanna. They’re not a scandal. They are both in positions of considerable trust and responsibility.”

 

Lady Ilane switched to Yamani again, and explained that people might not be so kind to – or frightened of – a ten-year-old page, and that they might assume that all those intending to be lady knights were of the same disposition as Sir Alanna. So Kel should avoid Lady Delia, in case some stupid gossip-monger developed an unfortunate association of ideas.

 

Kel obeyed, but didn’t really understand why it mattered until Neal started a brawl in the stables by implying that Joren of Stone Mountain entertained himself with Vinson and Garvey. After that, she took her mother’s instructions to heart, and avoided Lady Delia on the rare occasions she was at court.

 

 

This policy of avoidance broke down when Kel was fifteen, riding north through the desert after an agreeable few days with the Sandrunners. Lord Raoul was well ahead, talking in badly-accented Bazhir to the party escorting the Own north – much as the Sandrunners trusted Raoul himself, they preferred to get northern men-at-arms off their patch as thoroughly as possible – and Kel was riding by Qasim and the supply wagons, chewing very slowly on a single date. She was not really getting a taste for them, whatever Qasim said.

 

A group appeared in the distance. Kel squinted at them, and then asked Qasim if they were expecting to meet anyone. Although the Own might usually expect to meet with scouts riding out to check on their location when they were due to arrive somewhere - lords and mayors generally liked to have advance warning of their presence in the district, and perhaps a chance to invite the officers to dine and secure a little patriotic credit, while army garrisons tended to want a clear idea of where the Own were going and what they were doing - Third Company were being given a wide berth at the moment. Probably because of the griffin.

 

“Between here and Corus?” Qasim said. “I do not know. Although we will stop to resupply at some point; we are all covered in sand, half our gear needs mending, and if we ride into Corus for the Progress looking like this the First will make us all look as grubby as a gang of hillmen.”

 

They rode in silence for a little longer, undisturbed by anything other than the griffin’s occasional squawks and shufflings, as the other party – moving slowly, but clearly heading in the same direction – came more distinctly into view.

 

“Ah,” Qasim said. “Those men are the Bloody Hawk.” He drew a telescope from a pocket in his saddled and handed it to Kel. “See if you can see how they are riding with.”

 

Kel put the telescope to one eye and focussed carefully. “A lady in green,” she said eventually, “wearing a northern dress and a white veil over her face.” She lowered the telescope. “It’s, um, old-fashioned. There’s a portrait of my aunt wearing one like it, from before the Peacemaker died.”

 

“Anyone else?”

 

Kel put the telescope back to her eye. “There’s a boy in northern breeches and tunic and a Bazhir burnoose,” she said, surprised. “About a page’s age, I think. On a pony.”

 

Qasim nodded, and held out his hand for the telescope. “So. A lady in Tortallan dress, with a boy a page’s age, accompanied by Bloody Hawk tribesmen…?”

 

Kel scraped the bottom of her memory, and, possibly affected by the heat, came up blank.

 

“They never talk about the Lioness and the Bazhir in the north,” Qasim said, irony underlaying his usual good cheer. “I wonder why.”

 

Embarrassed, Kel fiddled with her pommel.

 

“Never mind. The Lioness was adopted by the Bloody Hawk. Lady Delia of Eldorne was too, in a sense… because of her extremely close friendship with Sir Alanna. You could say that she’s always a welcome visitor. It was the Bloody Hawk who named her –“ Qasim said something quick and harshly mellifluous in Bazhir – “which means Veiled Lady.” He gave her a significant look. “A name you’ll hear if you ever spend much time dealing with military intelligence.”

 

Kel nodded, and hoped that her calm stone face was in full operation despite the sweat and sunburn. “And the boy?”

 

“I have no idea,” Qasim said. “But Sir Alanna will keep on adopting orphans. Presumably one of them.” He stretched a little in the saddle. “This probably means we’ll resupply at Olau.”

 

Kel wondered if she was excited or petrified or both, and (related) whether Sir Alanna would be there, or whether she would already be in Corus for the Progress. Then she summoned up a map of the nation in her mind, and frowned. “Isn’t that out of the way for Corus?”

 

“A bit,” Qasim said. “About half a day extra. But do you think Lord Raoul’s keen to join the Progress?”

 

Kel gave this due consideration. “No,” she said finally.

 

Qasim laughed.

 

Lady Delia’s group joined Third Company, melding seamlessly with it; two of the Bazhir remained with her, while the others took their leave. Lady Delia and Lord Raoul were old friends, Kel knew, and from the way Raoul ruffled the boy’s dark hair he was friendly with the child, too. They rode up front. Kel did not go to greet them, partly because she was currently riding Peachblossom to give Hoshi a rest and he would bite anyone who looked at him funny, partly because she didn’t want to get the griffin overexcited, and partly because she didn’t want to get any closer to one of the king’s spies than she had to. Old habits, with regard to Lady Delia, died hard.

 

The boy trotted down the column about an hour after he joined the train, though, and turned out to be a lad of ten or eleven, with straightforward eyes, a good seat on a horse, and a quartered badge for Eldorne and Olau on the enamelled pin holding his burnous in place. He greeted Qasim in polite, nicely-accented Bazhir, and then turned to Kel and bowed in the saddle. “Am I addressing Squire Keladry?”

 

Kel bowed in return. “You are,” she said, trying to match the boy’s formal good manners. “I’m afraid I don’t know…”

 

“Ned of Eldorne,” the boy said, with the very slightest undertone of self-consciousness. “My cousin Seaver told me you found a griffin cub. May I see him?”

 

“Of course,” Kel said, boggling internally. Seaver had never mentioned a Cousin Ned; in fact, he never talked about his family, except for the simplest platitudes about his mother and the inarticulate grief he felt for his father. “Provided you don’t get too close - you know how adult griffins will react if -?”

 

Ned was already nodding. He rode a little closer and stared in a concentrated sort of way as Kel carefully lifted the light cover she’d put over the now-sleeping griffin’s carrier, to stop him suffering under the sun. The griffin didn’t stir; after a few minutes, Kel judged it was time to stop pushing their luck and covered him again.

 

“Did he give you the scars on your hands?” Ned asked, looking at Kel’s hands with forensic attention.

 

“Yes,” Kel admitted, looking at them herself. Most were now the pale pink or sheened white of well-healed scars, and some were even fading away; only a few were still red and raw. She was getting better at keeping the griffin from damaging her skin. “He’s fast.” She rubbed thoughtfully at the slightly swollen flesh marking the latest injury, and then pulled her hand away. “How is Seaver? Does he write often?”

 

“No, he’s lousy at letters,” Ned said, with the frankness Sir Alanna was famous for. “He’s been home for a bit, before the Progress.”

 

“At Eldorne?” Kel said, privately dubious. Eldorne was at the foot of the Hills, on the other side of the desert. Tasride was far closer to Corus - a little north of Olau, in fact.

 

Ned shook his head. “No. Olau. Delia’s father and her stepmother live at Eldorne.”

 

“So Lerant must also be your cousin?”

 

Ned gave her a patient look. “Yes. His father’s my uncle. Half-uncle - he’s Delia’s half-brother.”

 

Kel thought to herself that she would need someone to draw her a family tree in a minute. “Do you know Lerant well?”

 

“No,” Ned said, as if it wasn’t relevant one way or another. Kel recalled, vaguely, that Lerant preserved a surprisingly tactful silence about his aunt - but then most people did. Delia of Eldorne wasn’t someone you could speak out of turn about.

 

“Are you thinking of joining the King’s Own like him?” Kel said, feeling a little at sea with this extremely self-possessed child. “Or becoming a knight?”

 

“No. I want to be a lawyer.”

 

Qasim grinned, and said something in Bazhir that Kel half-understood to be a proverb, difficult to translate. Ned laughed, finally sounding like the boy he was, and said: “People aren’t _fair_. I want to make them be fair.”

 

“That I understand,” Kel said, and was then called away to fetch something from the wagons for Lord Raoul.

 

They rode into Olau just before sunset, where Lady Delia and Ned peeled off from the group with their two Bloody Hawk escorts, while the Own continued on to stable their horses and be given billets. Kel saw the four of them ride up to the honey-coloured steps of the castle’s generous keep, where two girls a few years younger than Ned - one fair-haired and pale as a ghost, the other dark-haired and bronze-complexioned - burst from the great doors. They flew down the steps and practically tumbled to Lady Delia’s feet, followed by the unmistakable stocky, copper-haired figure of Sir Alanna, calling to them to be careful. Kel glimpsed, just before they rode on too far to see anything, Ned climb off his horse and run to Sir Alanna for a hug while Lady Delia embraced the girls; Sir Alanna held her adoptive son for a few moments, and then clasped arms with the tribesmen who had brought the other half of her family home.

 

Kel found herself highly contemplative as she followed Lord Raoul round to the stables, and wasn’t surprised when Lerant beat her to Drum’s care: she barely even noticed the snide look he cast her, although he’d mostly stopped that now. Maybe his aunt’s presence was unnerving him.

 

Kel went into the keep, still thinking hard. Special arrangements had been made for her and the griffin, and she listened to the castellan enumerate these with half an ear before carting her gear and her menagerie indoors and establishing herself and Lord Raoul in the rooms that had been set aside for them. Olau was a wealthy fief, safe and central and close to tribes that had been friendly to the Crown for generations; the space made available to Kel and Raoul was generous and comfortable. Kel only hoped the griffin didn’t tear it up.

 

She was standing at the window, looking out over the orchards and trying to puzzle out what she had seen and heard, when she heard a knock on the connecting door and turned just in time to see Raoul enter.

 

“You look thoughtful, squire,” Raoul said.

 

“I just realised I don’t know very much about Eldorne and Olau,” Kel said. The griffin yelled at her, and she laced on her arm protectors and reached for some jerky from the packet she always kept. “I didn’t know there was an heir to either fief - besides Sir Alanna, I mean - and I thought Master Oakbridge was comprehensive.”

 

“Comprehensive, but probably behind the times,” Raoul said. “What’s confusing you?”

 

Everything, Kel thought, passing over the smile she had seen Sir Alanna give Lady Delia and wondering if she looked at Cleon like that.

 

“The children,” Kel said, dangling the end of the jerky before the griffin until he snatched it and began to wrestle. “I don’t know who they are. And Seaver didn’t mention he was a cousin to Lady Delia, so that took me by surprise.”

 

“Cousin by marriage,” Raoul said, half a joke and half very much not. He sat on the comfortably padded window-seat and watched Kel play with the griffin. “Sir Alanna’s mother was a Tasride - Seaver is her first cousin’s son. He fostered here.”

 

“I didn’t know,” Kel said.

 

“Going on what Delia let slip after that little mess in your first year as a page,” Raoul said, “Seaver avoids talking about anything connected with his father’s death.”

 

Kel’s attention slipped momentarily, and the griffin almost got her. She yanked her hand out of the way.

 

“Alanna was here when the spidrens got Benwick,” Raoul said, leaning against a wall and crossing his arms. “She never talked to Benwick all that much, but he was her cousin and her neighbour and not much of a fighter, so she rode out to help when she heard the news. She was too late for Benwick, but she did notice that Lady Berenjera wouldn’t look her son in the face, so she scooped him up and brought him back here. Typical Alanna. It was supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but…” Raoul pressed his lips together.

 

Kel playfought with the griffin in silence, struggling to keep her mind calm.

 

“Seaver looks like his father,” Raoul said. “According to Delia.”

 

Kel unhooked the griffin’s claws deftly from the arm protector. “You know Sir Alanna and Lady Delia well?”

 

“They’re two of my closest friends,” Raoul said, and added: “I’m glad you get to meet them now.”

 

“I’m honoured,” Kel said formally, and was promptly bitten by the griffin. She yelped.

 

“Little monster,” Raoul sighed, propping one hand on his hip and rubbing the other over his face.

 

Someone banged on Kel’s door. Kel, who was busy prising the griffin off her forearm, tried to decide between not dignifying Raoul’s comment with a reply and asking him to get the door. In the end, Raoul solved the problem for her by opening the door.

 

“One minute, Seaver,” he said. “Kel’s got a griffin stuck to her arm.”

 

Kel unstuck the griffin and inspected the damage to the fist he had chewed on while the griffin flew around the room in fits and starts, crashing off furniture and eventually coming back to a halt on his platform. “I haven’t now, my lord.”

 

“Uh,” Seaver said, and double-blinked rapidly. “You know, I almost didn’t believe Daine when she said you had a baby griffin, but I guess it’s helpless and it bites and no-one else would look after it if you paid them a thousand nobles, so… of course.”

 

Raoul laughed, and Kel wrinkled her nose at Seaver, trying to work the leather arm-guard off without getting blood on it. Seaver grinned at her, a surprising burst of brightness from a normally very solemn teenager, and then bowed to Raoul.

 

“Sir Douglass and Lady Delia would like to talk to you, my lord,” he said. “In Lady Delia’s solar.”

 

“I _knew_ letting us stop here wasn’t just a nice gesture,” Raoul said with a mock sigh. “You don’t need to show me the way, Seaver, thank you.”

 

Seaver bowed again. “You might wish to be aware Master Numair and Master Thom are also in the castle.”

 

“Mithros,” Raoul said, eyes widening; Seaver had just named two of the most powerful mages of the realm. “How did you get them out of Sorcerors’ Tower?”

 

“Baron Cooper cancelled the food delivery from Swoop castle town, and told them if they weren’t in Corus in a fortnight’s time he’d tell on them to Lady Delia,” Seaver said. “And then Sir Douglass and I brought them here.”

 

“Dragged them, I should think,” Raoul said, and added to Kel: “If I’ve ever seen a worse horseman than Thom of Trebond, it’s Numair Salmalín.”

 

Kel wasn’t sure if she was supposed to smile or not.

 

“Ah well,” Raoul said. “Better go to Delia before she gets pointed. Thanks for the message, Seaver. Kel, you’re at liberty for the rest of today.”

 

Kel nodded. “Thank you, my lord.”

 

Raoul let himself out through his own rooms. Kel ran a hand through her hair, was grateful to realise after the fact that it wasn’t the bloody one, and looked at Seaver, who was staring at the griffin. This creature had now settled quietly on his platform and gone to sleep, which only made Kel suspicious.

 

“He’s beautiful,” Seaver said, unprompted, surprising Kel.

 

“Lord Raoul’s right,” Kel replied, clapping a clean handkerchief to her bleeding hand. “He’s a little monster. Is there a stillroom or something where I can fix this up?”

 

Seaver picked at the corner of the handkerchief, and hissed at what he saw. “No need,” he said. “We’ll get Alanna to fix that up. You can’t ride with the Own with your hands in shreds.”

 

Kel opened her mouth and then closed it again, fishlike.

 

“She’s just a person, you know,” Seaver said, half-smiling wryly. “I know, I used to think she was ten feet tall and more than mortal, but she’s better than that. She’s human.” He clapped Kel on the shoulder and then winced when the griffin twitched at the noise. “And she’ll flay me if I let you walk around like that when she’s here to fix it.”

 

Kel smiled reluctantly. “Is her temper as sharp as everyone says?”

 

“Only if you annoy her,” Seaver said, almost cheerfully.

 

Kel considered this. “Is Neal still alive?”

 

“He’s gone home to Corus to see his parents, but Alanna swore he had all his limbs _and_ his head when she released him.”

 

“Either he’s learned to hold his tongue or she’s not as grumpy as everyone says,” Kel remarked.

 

Seaver actually laughed.

 

“You’re cheerful,” Kel observed.

 

Seaver was silent for a moment, and she was worried she’d gone overboard. But after a few minutes he smiled, and answered “I’m home.”

 

 

Sir Alanna was careful and brisk, and explained each step to Kel out loud - possibly for Kel’s benefit, possibly for the benefit of the stillroom maid and the housekeeper coming in and out - as she cleaned and healed the marks the griffin had made on Kel’s hand. She was taking care, Kel thought, not to make too much of a fuss, or to show overmuch interest in Kel. She talked of Kel and Seaver’s lessons, of their tilting, and the experience they’d both gained over the last year, but nothing personal or specific to Kel. She was well-informed: Kel wondered if she took a special interest in Kel because she was the next girl, and in Seaver because he was her cousin and had fostered with her, or if she kept an eye on all the pages. Neal was the first squire she’d taken, after the upheavals of King Jonathan’s accession had been followed by the still greater upheavals of the Immortals War, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t considered it earlier.

 

Sir Alanna dismissed them both to the kitchens for a snack, and made Seaver promise not to give the children enough biscuits to spoil their supper; Kel, aunt to legions of nieces and nephews, knew exactly what she meant, and wasn’t shocked when she and Seaver were besieged by Ned and the two little girls she’d seen earlier. The girls climbed like kittens, and plainly knew Seaver well enough to be comfortable grabbing onto his shirt and jumping up to try to get the soft, honey-laden biscuits and fruit the cook had given them. Seaver laughed - the second actual audible laugh Kel had ever heard from him - and held the biscuits out of their reach.

 

“Come on, ’Rinie and ’Leni, what’s the magic word? Kel’s going to think you were born in a barn.”

 

“Wasn’t!” said the blonde, folding her arms and sticking her lower lip out in a way that reminded Kel forcibly of her brother’s son Lachren when he was little.

 

“Please,” the dark-haired girl yelled, making a particularly adventurous leap. “Please Seaver!”

 

Seaver handed them a biscuit each, and they took off with their prizes, shrieking like hooligans.

 

“What do you say?” Seaver shouted after them.

 

“ _Fank you_!” came a distant cry, muffled by honey biscuits.

 

“Your griffin probably behaves better,” Seaver said to Kel.

 

“But I don’t think the girls bite,” Kel pointed out.

 

“Not unless they’re really angry,” Ned said seriously. He was hanging back, scuffing the toe of his soft boot on the paving slabs, but his eyes were on the biscuits.

 

Seaver gave him two. “Don’t tell the girls I gave you more. Are you going to play chess with Uncle Myles?”

 

Ned nodded, mouth already full of crumbs. “He fays -”

 

“Ned.”

 

Ned swallowed. “He says I’m going to be nearly as good as Delia and I should start learning how to play cards. But not from Uncle George.”

 

Kel tentatively identified ‘Uncle George’ with Baron George Cooper, less famous husband of Lady Thayet, granted a barony in the south for unspecified reasons connected to the very timely death of Duke Roger of Conté. He was another of the king’s confidential agents, according to Kel’s parents, and from the way Ned and Seaver had talked about him he must know the family well. “Why not?”

 

“Because he cheats,” Ned said, through another mouthful of biscuit. “So I shouldn’t play with him until I’m good enough to catch him out.”

 

A bell rang somewhere high up in the castle, low and mellifluous. Ned jumped, and garbled out a polite goodbye before leaving at speed, the entire second biscuit stuffed into his mouth for safekeeping.

 

“Mad,” Seaver said cheerfully. “Come and tell me about the Own. If we stick around here the girls will come back for more biscuits.”

 

“What are their names?” Kel asked, following Seaver out a side door into the orchards. “I didn’t catch them.”

 

“Eleni’s the blonde one,” Seaver said, leading her through the trees, along the edge of the orchard, where a wall separated them from what Kel assumed were the gardens. “Marinie’s got dark hair. Eleni’s… about seven, we think? Marinie’s a bit older.”

 

“And they’re orphans?”

 

Seaver nodded. “Immortals War orphans, like Ned.” He paused. “Like me, I guess.”

 

Kel ate a biscuit in order not to have to say anything. She’d assumed Seaver went home to Tasride in the summers when they were pages. As the heir, he must be seen there sometimes, but given what she now knew it was entirely possible he only visited briefly.

 

“There was this fishing village near Frasrlund, up north,” Seaver said, as they reached a low and rather crumbly brick wall. He sat down, and put the basket of biscuits and fruit next to himself. Kel took a seat on the other side. “It got cleaned out by raiders from the Copper Isles, but they missed the babies - or couldn’t be bothered to kill them. Stormwings found Marinie and Eleni and protected them.”

 

Kel choked on a bit of apple.

 

“They like children,” Seaver said. “Stormwings. They don’t… they don’t hurt children.”

 

“I thought Stormwings were -”

 

“Filth, I know.”

 

Kel paused. “I wouldn’t necessarily have said it like that.”

 

Seaver pointed a biscuit at her. “You would if you hadn’t thought about it.”

 

Kel summoned a piece of calm, and thought guiltily that Seaver was absolutely right; ‘filth’ would have been her first instinct.

 

“Well, they are,” Seaver said, eating his emphasis biscuit. “But they still won’t hurt kids. The villagers who’d run away and survived came back, and… well, they said Marinie and Eleni were bad luck. Because they were still alive and because of the Stormwings. And because Marinie’s mother was born a Copper Islander, so they blamed her for the raid. Never mind she was just as dead as everyone else.” He swallowed and reached for a piece of fruit. “When Alanna rode in they wouldn’t even tell her the girls’ names, and the village temple burned so there were no records. Alanna and Delia chose the names the girls use now.”

 

“Are they of Eldorne, like Ned?”

 

Seaver shook his head. “The girls are Olau. Because it was Delia’s idea to adopt Ned and Alanna’s idea to adopt the girls.” Seaver crunched his apple lazily between his teeth. “That, and I think Delia really enjoys annoying old Lord Adam. He has plenty of sons and grandsons through his second wife, but it was Delia’s mother who was heir to the fief - he only has the title through spousal right. If Delia had no children, then the fief would probably pass to Lord Adam’s sons, but she has Ned.” He paused thoughtfully. “They visit a lot. Ned likes it there.”

 

Kel smiled. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

 

“I don’t remember seeing anyone from Eldorne at court,” Kel said finally, and then added conscientiously “- except Lady Delia.”

 

“Lord Adam came that Midwinter Joren spent all the banquets making us look stupid,” Seaver said. “Nasty old man. He tried to challenge Alanna to a duel and Queen Cerenne sent him away. He says he won’t come back until he gets an apology, and Her Majesty’s probably forgotten he exists, so…”

 

Kel controlled her smirk into something politer. Seaver didn’t bother.

 

The basket was empty. Seaver collected it with one absent hand and slipped off the wall. “You’ve never seen Olau before,” he said. “Let me show you around.”

 

Olau was an expansive, comfortable kind of place. Though plainly ready for a siege if necessary - Seaver pointed out emplacements for archers, stables, stores, heavy reinforced shutters that folded over the beautiful wide windows, a thoroughly-stocked armoury - it had equally plainly not seen one recently. Seaver led Kel through the master solar, showed her his rooms (well-lived in, and more characterful than anything he kept at the palace) and the great hall and the library, one corner of which was clearly the girls’ schoolroom. He led Kel past a string of plain doors without explaining them beyond the words ‘Uncle Myles and Delia have studies here’, and even took her outside through the formal gardens to show her a structure that looked freshly built. The gardens were beautiful, teeming with early-summer roses, but the structure looked odd and out of place and examining it made Kel’s eyes sting. It was mostly wood, but -

 

“Hellfire and damnation,” came an unfamiliar exclamation, and a pair of wooden shutters flaring with purple flame blew out over their heads. Kel and Seaver dived for cover on the other side of an ornamental hedge. “Numair, check we haven’t fried a hedgehog, would you? It’s more than my life’s worth if Daine finds out I’ve hurt any innocent bystanders.”

 

Kel had never met Master Thom of Trebond, bar a single lesson in Philosophy where he had given a ferocious and largely inexplicable lecture on the directions unfettered pride could lead you in. All she knew of him was that he was powerful and rather thoughtless, and every now and then did something stupid that caused the king to dispatch Sir Alanna to the south coast to shout at him. Lalasa had also told some garbled tale about him turning people into frogs, but Kel wasn’t quite sure she believed that.

 

“Does this always happen when they come here?” she asked Seaver, who looked far too calm to have been much surprised.

 

“Pretty much,” Seaver said. “That’s why the workshop isn’t in the main castle. And isn’t made of anything permanent.”

 

“That seems sensible.”

 

Numair Salmalín’s good-humoured face stuck itself out of the place where the shutters had been, and brightened when he saw Kel and Seaver - flat on the floor but quite unhurt. “Hello, Seaver. And it’s Squire Kel, isn’t it? Daine says you do wonders with that horse of yours. What’s his name. The grumpy one.”

 

“Peachblossom,” Kel called back. “It’s nice to see you too, Master Numair. Is everything all right up there?”

 

“Fine,” shouted Thom of Trebond. “We’re just _fine_. Nothing is on fire.”

 

“Nothing is on fire any more,” Master Numair corrected.

 

“You can tell my sister we’ll be in for dinner, we’re almost done here.”

 

“Yes, Master Thom,” Seaver shouted.

 

“ _Seaver_! How many times?”

 

“I can’t help being polite, Cousin Thom,” Seaver yelled back.

 

Master Numair grinned. “Get Squire Kel out of here before Thom starts the next experiment,” he advised. “She’ll think this is a madhouse.”

 

“Begging your pardon, Master Numair, but since Daine stopped studying with you everywhere you and Cousin Thom go is a madhouse,” Seaver retorted, not sounding all that sorry.

 

Master Numair sighed. “True. Very true. That might even have been a leading factor in her decision to go. Ah well.” He flapped a hand. “As you’ll learn one day, Seaver, the thing about being a teacher is that your students outgr-”

 

“ _Numair_! I need a hand!”

 

“Oh shit,” Master Numair said, and disappeared back into the workshop.

 

Kel and Seaver scrambled to their feet and fled.

 

 

 

They took the long way back through the gardens, looping around the rose gardens and past a small maze to the orchards. They had intended to go back through the orchards, but then Seaver stopped dead at an arch of flowering ivy and murmured: “Let’s go another way,” tugging Kel back very quietly and leading her back round the maze. Kel only caught a glimpse of the scene that had led him to change direction - a dark-haired lady in an old-fashioned loose purple tunic and breeches over a white lace-edged shirt, sitting on the ground with her back against a tree and another woman’s head resting in her lap, the lady’s fingers combing idly through the woman’s short red hair. The dark-haired lady wore her hair unfashionably loose, shielding her face as she bent her head towards her companion, and the redhead had her face turned away from Kel, but it was still plain who they were.

 

 _Lady Delia did not forswear Sir Alanna_ , Kel remembered.

 

“They don’t get to see each other much,” Seaver said almost defensively, as he led her down a broad brick path to low wide steps and an open green door. “I know what people say -”

 

“Not me, Seaver,” Kel said, and watched Seaver’s shoulders relax a little.

 

“No,” he said. “Not you.”

 

They walked in silence for a few moments.

 

“It’s normal, among the Yamanis,” Kel said eventually. “No-one would think twice.”

 

Seaver smiled.

 

They made their way indoors, and Seaver led Kel up to a long gallery full of pictures - mostly very old, and probably very valuable, but some of them more recent, including a view of Olau signed by Cythera of Naxen under her maiden name. At one end, marked out by clutter as the end where the family spent most of their time, formal portraits of ancestors had been swept aside in favour of recognising the family who lived here now: Seaver stopped to show these off. Miniatures of all three children and sketches of Seaver and Master Thom clustered next to an elegant bust portrait of Lady Delia looking sly and demure, a full-length portrait of Sir Alanna looking young and stubborn and glorious, and a half-length of Sir Myles and Lady Eleni, obviously very much in love.  The latter three were dated within a couple of years of King Jonathan’s coronation, Kel noticed. The pictures of Lady Delia and Sir Myles and his wife were private portraits she hadn’t seen before, but Kel recognised the famous image of the Lioness as Champion, taken as was traditional on her ascension to the role, and wondered if the one in the King’s Hall was a copy. She noticed, too, that the artist had been cheeky enough to paint Lady Delia wearing a gossamer veil over her elaborate braids, and romantic enough to foreground Sir Myles and Lady Eleni’s clasped hands and the light shining off their wedding rings.

 

“- and that’s Baron George and Lady Thayet,” Seaver continued, pointing to a sketch in pastels. It looked like another wedding portrait, and was about ten years old; Kel sort of recognised the people in it, but couldn’t name them until Seaver spoke. “Baron George is Lady Eleni’s son from before she married Sir Myles. Lady Eleni’s not here, she’s still in the capital with Princess Anjela. I can’t remember if she’s still the princess’s governess or if she’s officially a lady-in-waiting now -”

 

“Governess,” Kel said.

 

“- Right.” Seaver reached up and touched the frame of Baron George and Lady Thayet’s picture lightly, apparently admiring the artist’s work. Both Baron George and his lady had striking bones and a great deal of personality compacted into strong frames, and the artist had done well to capture them. Their joined hands rested on a small stack of books, which was probably meaningful if you knew them. “You were always the best at remembering ranks and things.”

 

“The Yamanis take it seriously.”

 

“We’re going to have our work cut out with Princess Shinkokami.” Seaver rubbed the end of his nose and screwed his face up. “Isn’t she the same rank as the emperor?”

 

“No. Nobody is from the same rank as the emperor and his heir, not even the rest of the imperial family. Princess Shinkokami is of the second rank - that’s higher than Princess Chisakami was, but Princess Shinkokami’s father is tactless for a Yamani, so the family… dips in and out of favour.”

 

Seaver absorbed this, and grimaced. “Imagine if tactlessness was enough to get you into trouble at court _here_.”

 

“Lord Raoul would be permanently stuck on the most boring corner of the Tusaine border.”

 

Seaver grinned. “Never mind Sir Alanna.” He tapped the panelling beside the last portrait, at the very edge of the group of recent images. “You know who this is, of course.”

 

Kel nodded at the familiar copy of the portrait of Queen Cerenne and King Jonathan with a baby Roald. She’d never actually seen it up close before - the Tortallan embassy in the Yamani Islands displayed a copy of the king and queen’s wedding portrait, not the one taken after the birth of the heir. This close, she could see the ashen undertone to Queen Cerenne’s nut-brown skin, and wondered if the artist had been unskilled or the queen had been that unwell. Considering Sir Myles’ reputation as a man of wealth and taste, and the large gap between Roald and his oldest sister, it was probably the latter.

 

At the other end of the long gallery, Ned and Sir Myles were taking advantage of the late afternoon sunlight to play chess in one of the deeply recessed windowseats. Kel and Seaver wandered over to join them, and Kel smiled to see the resemblance in their expressions; the same serious considering frowns fixed on the chessboard.

 

Sir Myles looked up. “Have you come to tell us it’s dinner time?”

 

“No,” Seaver said, “not yet. We’re not eating till eight bells. In the Hall, too.”

 

Sir Myles raised his eyebrows peaceably. “I thought Delia said something about a feast. Not a metaphorical one, I see.”

 

Seaver shrugged.

 

“Do I get to come?” Ned asked, fidgeting with one of the knights that had been discarded.

 

“Ask your mother,” Seaver said. “I don’t know. I just know to tell Kel she doesn’t have to serve, we’re to sit at table with everyone else.”

 

Kel smiled wryly. “Thanks for letting me know,” she said dryly, making Seaver grin.

 

“I forgot,” Seaver explained. “Can we watch you play, Ned?”

 

“You can help me,” Ned said eagerly. “I’m losing.”

 

Kel eyed the board. Ned was right.

 

“I did offer to give you some pieces,” Sir Myles pointed out. “You said no. Pull up chairs if you want to join us, Seaver, Kel - May I call you Kel?”

 

“Of course, sir.” Seeing that Seaver was occupied helping Ned, Kel went and carried two low chairs over, and prepared to while away the rest of the afternoon.

 

 

The feast was delicious. Kel admired everything, from the Own trying to look parade-ground smart (and almost succeeding in the friendly candle-light) to the vaulting of the grand old hall that predated most of the castle by centuries, to Sir Alanna and Lady Delia at the top table, lost in conversation with Lord Raoul, and looking keen and intelligent in flashing jewels and silks. As Kel returned from a quick trip to the privy, she saw Sir Alanna cover Lady Delia’s hand on the table with her own absently, and squeeze tight; she sighed a little, wondering if she and Cleon might look like that in fifteen years’ time. Sometimes, given the few chances they had to see each other, it didn’t seem at all likely.

 

“- but there is that one problem with Kourrem’s reports,” Sir Douglass was saying as Kel took her seat again. “She can’t resist sniping at Thom - not that I can blame her, he was born to be sniped at -”

 

Kel directed her attention back to Seaver, who was staring out over the hall and looking happy in a bittersweet kind of way, not noticing that Ned had fairly much fallen asleep in his seat at the end of the table. Kel moved the boy’s plate out of range of his head, just in case, and elbowed her yearmate gently.

 

Seaver started, and looked at Kel.

 

“You were wool-gathering,” Kel said, turning her attention to your plate. “I didn’t realise you had such a big family, Seaver.”

 

Seaver smiled again, more softly. “I know,” he said, and then, as if he were struggling to encompass a feeling larger than words - “It’s nice.”

 

Kel smiled, and then nearly choked on her food as she suddenly registered Lady Delia and Sir Alanna passing behind her to stand by Ned’s chair. Lady Delia laid a hand on Ned’s shoulder, making him stir and blink, and Sir Alanna gently lifted him out of his seat.

 

“I think you’re done for the night, my lad,” Sir Alanna said, more softly than most people would think her capable of, and slung Ned into her arms with a small grunt of effort, carrying him from the room. Ned made a small protesting noise, but then wedged his face into her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her neck like an octopus.

 

Lady Delia looked after them, smiling.

 

“He’s much less clingy than he used to be,” Seaver remarked, and looked down at Ned’s almost-empty plate. “And better about food.”

 

“He’s almost convinced that none of us will starve unexpectedly or abandon him,” Lady Delia said, with a wry affection. “It’s progress.” She glanced at Kel. “I don’t know if Seaver has told you Ned’s history, Squire Keladry.”

 

Seaver shook his head.

 

“I only know Ned is an orphan, my lady,” Kel said, and added: “I don’t wish to intrude.”

 

“That’s very good of you, but you aren’t.” Lady Delia looked at the last glimpse of Sir Alanna, disappearing up the stairs with Ned. “Ned’s birth parents died in the Immortals War. It was years ago, but these things mark children. He sometimes seems much younger than his age, and sometimes much older. You may have noticed that. Don’t be unsettled by it.”

 

Kel nodded very slightly. Lady Delia favoured them both with a smile, and then returned to her seat.

 

“You weren’t in Tortall for the Immortals War, were you?” Seaver asked.

 

Kel shook her head. “But my older brothers…”

 

There was a moment of silence between them, no less quiet for the noise and chatter from the rest of the hall.

 

“It is what it is,” Seaver said.

 

Kel nodded.

 

The two of them changed the subject.

 

 

 

Kel was surprised to be sought out and asked to assist with some rose-cutting the next day.

 

“Lord Raoul tells me you are good at avoiding…” Lady Delia waved vaguely at Kel’s hands. “Sharp things.”

 

Warily, Kel agreed. She wasn’t given the shears, though; Lady Delia held onto those, and had Kel follow behind her with a basket, rapidly filling with blooms of every shade a rose could be.

 

Lady Delia’s questions were as well-informed as Sir Alanna’s, and more personal. She knew the details of Kel’s marks and her teachers’ opinions of her; she was specially interested in Kel’s knowledge of Yamani culture and society, and whether and how much she had talked to Prince Roald about his impending betrothal, agreed years before but not yet formally vowed by the principals. She steered clear of asking about Kel’s parents, but did have a great deal to ask about Kel’s opinion of Tortall, now she had seen both Tortall and the Yamani Islands. She wanted to know about Kel’s rescue of Lalasa, and what Kel thought of the trial - this all so delicately phrased that Kel had to use every bit of skill her parents had imparted to find a way round the questions. She wanted to know about Kel’s plans for the future.

 

Kel, whose head was spinning by this time, said that she just wanted to get her shield.

 

“And afterwards?” Lady Delia asked. The basket was loaded down with roses; Lady Delia was now leaning against the wooden frame of a bower, stripping thorns from the stem of a gold-petalled rose edged with red.

 

“I’ll be a plain knight,” Kel said. “I don’t expect any kind of command or anything, my lady. There are plenty of people who didn’t want a girl to get this far at all.”

 

Lady Delia smiled. Kel couldn’t decide if it was meant to be secretive, or if that was just the way her face was shaped.

 

“Never say never, Squire. Talent will out. After all, I’m not a lady of the manor, am I? And that was all I was taught to aspire to when I was your age.”

 

This was the closest either of them had got to acknowledging Lady Delia’s actual employment. Kel summoned all her Yamani calm.

 

“I hope only to be as fortunate as you were in finding an outlet for my talents, Lady Delia.”

 

Lady Delia chuckled delightfully. She had clearly practised that. “From your lips to the gods’ ears, Squire Kel.” She tucked the rose behind her ear and scattered the thorns into a flowerbed. “In the meantime, I think you will enjoy meeting an old friend in Princess Shinkokami’s retinue - the Lady Yukimi, if I have given the correct title? Such a pity they don’t translate more easily.”

 

Kel assured her she was correct.

 

“Thank you,” Lady Delia said. “And do give my _professional_ respects to Lady Haname.”

 

Kel carefully did not freeze.

 

“Not to worry, squire,” Lady Delia said. “I’d much rather know where she is than send her home and cause a scandal. The replacement might be unpleasantly gauche, or worse, boring. I hear Lady Haname is a perfect lady and a fine poet besides. I look forward to hearing her verses.”

 

Kel didn’t know what on earth to say.

 

“If you could leave the roses on a side table when you go in,” Lady Delia said. “Don’t worry about the shears; I’ll hang on to those, you never know when you want fresh flowers.”

 

“My lady,” Kel said, trying to bow around the basket. Lady Delia nodded graciously and took her leave.

 

Kel went back to her rooms and told Lord Raoul that Lady Delia gave her a headache.

 

“It’s part of her charm,” Lord Raoul said. “You get used to it. Tell me if she gets too much.”

 

Kel disclaimed any such thing – not so much because she felt she could handle it as because she didn’t want to insult her hostess.

 

She wasn’t at all surprised to see the gold-and-red rose in Sir Alanna’s hair at dinner, but she still didn’t know what to think of Lady Delia.


End file.
